What's Happening to Me?!

Hey-o!

Life is fairly exciting. And by fairly exciting, I mean, I have a generally hard time of recalling exactly how I fill up every day, but it happens somehow. I know I've been busy... I'm going to just claim I'm still having problems with my short term memory.

So remember when I said I was going to do all sorts of fun stuff the last time I wrote? Like going to a self-defense workshop and whatnot? Well that didn't happen. The workshop, I mean. We stayed up uber late and the next morning we didn't want to get up. I don't remember exactly what we were doing, but... we did something. Something eventful enough that I couldn't get out of bed the next morning.

Halloween week was another one of those weeks. We literally had multiple things to choose from every single night of the week? What happened? We went to one party on Friday night... and that was it. Man we're so awesome. Saturday night, the night that apparently the entire state of Utah celebrates Halloween on, we were planning to do all sorts of super cool stuff and be exciting and social and awesome. And then Saturday night actually came and we were like, ...anyone want to watch a movie instead? We ended up watching the Dark Knight because I did the makeup for one of my old home teachers, Nate Dallon, and he dressed up like the Joker.

Sunday night was pretty fantastic though. Nothing Halloween related, since Halloween had been like, officially moved to Saturday or something. But after doing all my visiting teaching (aren't I so on top of things? Visiting teaching on the very last day of the month), I took a lovely and much needed nap, and then went over to Windsor to make some Mississippi Mud brownies with Krista and two guys in our ward, Dan and Trevor. In Relief Society and Priesthood they always pass out boxes of cookies/brownies and the rule is that if you get one, you have to ask someone of the opposite sex to make them with you for dessert night that night. So it was me, Krista, Dan, and Trevor, and that was fairly entertaining. Then while they were in the oven, we watched It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown! A classic. It's been a while since I've actually sat down and paid attention to it, and I was highly amused to find out how political Charlie Brown is. I'd never caught any of the little things they threw in there before.

Afterward we headed downstairs to Tom's apartment where dessert night was being held, and chatted with people for a while. Ate a cookie... chatted some more... wrote nice notes that I wouldn't exactly describe as NICE notes, but rather amusing/funny notes. We have a box where you can write little notes to someone and stick it in the box and it will be delivered to people. They call it nice notes, cause the idea is you write about how much you appreciate the person, but no one actually does that. Okay, I'm sure someone does that. But MOST people don't do that, most people end up writing inside jokes or just something amusing instead. Trevor ended up deciding he wanted to hoard all the nice notes, so any girl who passed by he asked to write him one. I'm also fairly certain that's not how nice notes are supposed to work, but hey. In the end, he had the biggest pile of nice notes on his table and everyone else had one or two, so... I guess he got what he wanted.

We never actually brought the brownies to dessert night... it had started at 8:30 and the brownies wouldn't be done till 9, so we decided to keep them for ourselves. So after dessert night we headed back upstairs to their apartment and ate the brownies and chatted some more. I've discovered a new pastime... peeling vinyl off their walls. The guy who lived in their apartment before them (I knew him from our ward last year) was crazy into vinyl and whatnot and it's all over their kitchen and they hate it. Thing is, they have no nails because, well, they're guys. And they discovered that I have the perfect nails for ripping that stuff off, so I spent a good 20 minutes peeling vinyl off the walls. Which sounds like they were totally using me as slave labor or something, but I found it kind of satisfying to rip that stuff down. Also, I volunteered, and I don't think people normally volunteer for slave labor, so... there's that difference too.

After a good hour or so of chatting and pulling vinyl off the wall, one of my old visiting teachers, Rachel, and I headed back downstairs to visit Scott and Matt. We watched the premiere of The Walking Dead, a super sweet and intense zombie apocalypse tv show. It was pretty gruesome at times, but the makeup was phenomenal, and the show is really intriguing. I could have done without the scene of like, 50 zombies eating the inside of a horse, though. That was not so pleasant. But other than that, it was pretty sweet.

Now I just need to get through this week's two tests, a paper, and preschool observations, and then I'll be all set for Disney World next week!!! I am so ridiculously excited. It's about all I can talk about. :)

Oh right, these preschool observations. So for my human development class, I have to do 90 minutes of observations of 3 preschool children. Apparently in the Family Science labs they just have a bunch of preschoolers playing around and you can come and sit in a booth and look through a two way mirror. Apparently you can also get a pair of headphones so that you can specifically listen to a particular child's conversations. Kind of creepy, eh? They'll have no idea I'm watching them. I'm like Big Brother... or Big Sister... but Big Sister doesn't sound as intimidating as Big Brother. Anyways, I have to watch these kids for 90 minutes and observe their behavior and then write a paper on it. Pretty cool, no?

Speaking of kids, I've started babysitting Karl, Julie's baby, on Fridays. Fridays used to be super boring because everyone was at class and I had nothing to do but clean. Now I get to hold a baby for like, four hours. It's infinitely better than what I used to do. Last Friday Karl and I took a lovely nap together. He was fast asleep, and Julie went to Target for a while, so we ended up just taking a nap, with Karl lying on my chest. Cutest thing ever. And best nap ever. :)

So lately I've started to notice my behavior/preferences changing, and Matt pinpointed exactly what it was. But lately I've been in this frantic "everything must be CLEAN!" mode, and when the apartment is a mess I get all fidgety and agitated until I go through and just clean everything. And then I'll usually bake something right after that. Also, I've started liking pink a lot. Anyone who knows me knows I don't generally like pink. But I REALLY like pink now. Maybe even more than red. Which is saying a LOT. Anyways, I've been in super cleaning mode and I spend a lot of my free time cleaning/organizing/baking/cooking. And someone was commenting on my behavior lately and Matt said, "You're just acting like a Mormon mom." And he's got a point. I keep getting into homemaker mode. Only thing is, I'm NOT a mom, so.... it just looks like crazy OCD compulsions. Oh well. At least it means our apartment is fairly clean most of the time. Actually, that's a lie. It surprises/frustrates me just how quickly our apartment turns into a disaster. And this past week I didn't clean every mess I saw and now our apartment is a complete disaster and this is what happens when I don't clean up. But in my defense, I shouldn't have to be cleaning up after them, they should clean up their own messes. But maybe they'll realize they need to since I've decided not to clean it up for them this time and our apartment is now revolting. :)

Well, pretty much all that's on my brain now is Disney World and Thanksgiving break. I am SO excited. I'm so exited I can't even possibly begin to describe it in words. That's how excited I am. I also realized that I will only be in Utah for like, a week and 5 days total this month. Which is pretty awesome in my book. I'm really tired of Utah lately. I want California and Florida all rolled into one. Is that possible? It should be. Cause that's what I want. :) But a week and 5 days also isn't very much time to get things done here. Like visiting teaching. Which I need to be super good about because I'm a visiting teaching supervisor. Also, I really like my teachees. They're both super awesome and I'd feel bad not visiting them. But I let them know how little I'll be in the state and they understand, so we'll see. Hopefully there will be some time to visit them. If not, I'll just make them some cookies and a note and drop them off. Everyone likes cookies more than a lesson, right? ;)

And now I've procrastinated studying for a test long enough, so I should get back to that. If I get this test done in the next few hours, I can begin one paper, finish it, and then start studying for my next test and get that over with on Friday. Since that's the first day the test is open. Then I won't have to worry about any tests next week except my geology rock ID final, which is sure to be super easy because my TA is letting me take the final right after our review... so... we'll have JUST gone over the rocks... and then I'll take the test... yeah. That worked out nicely. :) The final is technically scheduled for the 10th, but... that's when I fly out to Disney World. And my TA is super chill, so she was like, eh, you can just take it right after the review. So not only do I get to take my final on a different day, she just gave me a HUGE advantage. Thank you, TA. I love you too. :)

And that's about it for now. I'm sure I could ramble on a lot longer, but I really should study, and I'd feel bad for anybody who actually read all of my ramblings. I almost kind of feel sorry for anyone who reads all the way through to this point because I feel like this was really scattered and full of fairly useless information. Oh well. :)

Have a fantabulous day!

Halfway Done?!

Man this semester is flying by. Which I'm pretty happy about, because the second half of this semester is going to be a lot of fun. I'm still in a little shock that the first half of this semester is already over, though.

I've had some pretty eventful stuff happen lately. Last Saturday we got up bright and early at 6 AM and headed up to Temple Square in Salt Lake to plant bulbs for the Spring. At least, that's what they told us. Instead, they sent us to the flower beds, gave us shovels, and said "Tear it up." Needless to say, I felt a little sacrilegious ripping up the flowers at the temple. But it was still a lot of fun. Way more worms and spiders than I would have liked, but fun nonetheless. Around 9:30/10, there were more people on the street, so we got a lot of weird stares. Obviously we were with a group, but what would you think if you saw a bunch of college kids ripping out the flowers at the temple? :)

It was a lot of fun though. Hard work, but fun. We were covered in mud and dirt and sweat by the end, but we had a good time. There was one guy I'd been talking to about Scott Pilgrim vs. The World and how it's such a shame that a lot of people didn't like it, and so I'm sitting there thinking, "This guy's pretty cool, he can quote the best lines from Scott Pilgrim." And then he ate a worm. And then I decided he wasn't nearly as cool as I thought he was. Okay okay, so I didn't think he wasn't cool anymore, but I was extremely grossed out. It was a pretty decent sized worm.

I also went to see Julie's baby, Karl, this week. I went over last night and got to hold him for a while. He's grown so much since the first week I saw him. I'm planning to go over tomorrow and babysit him so that she can go grocery shopping and take a nap. He's so cute!

I've also picked out my classes for next semester. There are only four required classes that I can take next semester, so I added two fun classes that I've been wanting to do, since this is probably my last chance to take classes for fun. So I'm planning to take Children's Literature, Expository Writing for El Ed Teachers, Music and Civilization 2, Physical Activities for El Ed, Food Preparation in the Home, and Flexibility. The last two are the two I'm most excited for. I've been told by many people that flexibility is their favorite class they ever took here, because you just go and stretch and then take a nap. It's designated relaxation, de-stressing time. And I've been wanting to take Food Prep for a while. On Tuesdays I'll go to class at 8AM and just cook for three hours. Sounds pretty fun to me :)

I've also managed to arrange it so that I have Fridays off again! That's the magic of having low credit classes. All of my required classes from now on are going to be 2 credits for the most part, which means they'll either meet once a week for 2 hours or twice a week for one hour--either way, I can schedule it so that I don't have Friday classes. I'm hoping I can keep up this schedule for the rest of my major. It'd be pretty nice if I could. :)

So I randomly got this free subscription to Taste of Living Magazine, don't know exactly where it came from, but it was suddenly sent to me for free, so...  I'm not complaining. But the one they sent me is the Thanksgiving edition, so of course, as I'm flipping through this magazine I'm drooling all over the place because everything involves either pumpkin or butternut squash. So I promptly went to the store and bought a ton of ingredients to make a bunch of the recipes in there. Today I made a French Silk Pie that was super easy and tastes absolutely delicious. It would have been easier if I had a hand mixer, but oh well. It was a nice workout for my weak wrist. :)

This weekend I'm planning to make pumpkin pancakes and peach barbecue chicken wings. I'm pretty excited to try those out as well.

On Saturday I'm going to a Women's Self Defense workshop with Krista and Mal, and I'm actually kind of excited for that. I'm fairly weak and not good at defending myself at all, so it'll be fun to learn some self defense techniques. I actually almost signed up for a self defense class and a martial arts class for next semester, but went with food prep and flexibility instead. Maybe one day I'll have a little room for one of those. I think they'd be fun. :)

Friday night my roommates and I are going to carve pumpkins. Mal has a subscription to a pumpkin carving pattern website, so she prints off a ton of really cool patterns for us so we can have sweet looking pumpkins. We're each doing a couple pumpkins, so this year I decided on Lock, Shock, and Barrel from the Nightmare Before Christmas, and then a Zombie Hello Kitty pattern that I thought was hilariously awesome. I have a feeling that one will turn out better than the Lock, Shock, and Barrel one, because that one is a bit more complicated. But oh well. It should be fun :)

I finished up most of my midterms this week, and now I have a week and a half break before they start up again. I'll have another three midterms I think, and then that's it for the rest of the semester. I'm excited to be done with all of them, I just wish they'd be a little more spaced out. All three of the ones I have left are in the same week. That's how these past midterms have been for me. Oh well. Gets them all done in one go, I guess. And then I have free time to bake things and clean. I've actually gotten really good about cleaning regularly. It drives me crazy when things are out of order now, so whenever I have free time I tend to just clean the apartment. It just feels nicer when everything is neat and clean. :)

And I think that's about it for now. I'm excited for this weekend and my week of no tests! :) And then in two and a half weeks, I'll go to Disney World!!!

It's Only Been a Month?!

Well, quite a bit has happened since I last posted, but at the same time, I feel like nothing has happened. Most of my time is spent doing schoolwork, so there's really not much to report there. I'm just really busy most of the time.

I have Fridays off this semester, though, so I get a three day weekend EVERY week. It's pretty sweet. :)

I've gone through my first round of midterms already, and this week is round two. When I pulled up my calendar at the beginning of this month I wanted to die. Every single week has at least one midterm, and there are several papers scattered throughout it as well. This week in particular is going to be the most brutal. Three midterms and two papers. Next week is the lightest week, so I'll have a week to recuperate and prepare for the next round of midterms the following week, but still, it's not much of a break. But as soon as I muscle my way through October, the month of November is completely free of tests. I don't think I have a single midterm scheduled for November. Plus, I'll get to go home in November, and that will be a very welcome break.

As for my life outside of school... well, two weeks ago I was pretty busy every night. We went stargazing, saw Scott Pilgrim vs. The World at the dollar theater (excellent movie, by the way. I'm sad it got such poor reception, because it's the only movie I can think of that had me laughing throughout the entire thing), and... fed ducks at the duck pond. :) It was a pretty fun week.

Yesterday was pretty busy as well. After church, a guy in our ward, Taylor James Henderson III (he never introduces himself any other way), was locked out of his apartment and we had been planning to feed him dinner since he apparently had absolutely no food, so he came over to hang out till one of his roommates came back home. So he was over for a few hours and that was a lot of fun, he's a hilarious guy. Later we had a big apartment dinner, which was a lot of fun, then Mal, Krista, and I went singing at the Rehabilitation Center next to the hospital. I've never gone before, but I decided to today, and I'm glad I did. It's a lot of fun, and some of the people there are just really funny and awesome.

There is this one man, Richard, who I guess has been there for a long time, because several of the people who go every week to sing know him pretty well. He was showing us all the pictures in his room, his kids and grandkids, his wife, and then these pictures of him as a conductor of several orchestras, as a singer in a huge choir that performed in Carnegie Hall, and as a professional violinist. Apparently this guy was like, a really big deal in the music world when he was younger. So of course, those of us who had never come before were intimidated about singing in front of this music expert, but it was a lot of fun. He started conducting us and sang along with us and would tell us stories in between songs. He was a really cool guy.

Then a little bit later we had Dessert Night, which was a lot of fun. Everyone just brings dessert to a designated apartment and chats. There were a LOT of people this Sunday, probably because it was the first official one of the semester, since our ward has had trouble getting started and organized this year. But it was a lot of fun, and I met several new people.

After dessert night we watched Ghostbusters at Scott and Matt's apartment to start off the weekend Halloween movies for October. I hadn't seen that movie in ages, so it was basically like watching it for the first time.

And now after a weekend of fun, it's time to buckle down and get through this week. This week will definitely be the worst this month, but at least my tests are all slightly spread out. Every single one overlaps, but they all run a different amount of days and they're distributed evenly enough that I won't have to take more than one on any particular day this week. So that's nice, cause I can spread out my studying and focus on just one, then move on to the next.

And I think that's about it for now. Time to buckle down and hope I make it through this week alive. :)

I'm back!

Well, it's been quite a while since I've written on this. I've returned from my summer in Orlando, working as a Fairy Godmother in Training at DisneyWorld. If you want to read all about that, just tell me and I'll send you an invite. :)

It's week 2 of school, but it feels like I've been here a full semester already. Moving in was a little difficult with a broken arm and a shoulder that likes to give out, so it made carrying things and unpacking loads of fun, but I've got some good friends, and they helped me out quite a bit. My long cast is now gone and I have a much shorter one, which makes it a lot easier to do things for myself. I'm not quite as helpless as I was a week ago.

The first week of classes felt like a month, if not longer. I had some of the most boring classes you could possibly think of--namely, British Literary History, focusing on the Middle Ages through the 1600s. Reading the entire Beowulf poem and writing a paper on it all in one night is definitely not my idea of fun. But I've made some major decisions and changed my entire schedule. So far I'm liking my new classes a lot more than the old ones, and I think I'll like this major better as well. I've decided to go with Elementary Education, rather than English Teaching. After working with kids this summer, I've decided that I really do love to work with kids, and teaching a bunch of teenagers English just doesn't sound like something I really want to do. But I'm set on the teaching aspect, and I think I'd really enjoy teaching kindergarten/1st grade.

So that's my plan, and I'm not going to change it. This was the last semester I've given myself to make changes to my major, so now it's final. I should be able to graduate on time with the El Ed major too, something that wasn't going to happen with English Teaching. Now let's just hope that I get accepted into the program. I'm not too worried, but you never know. I'm planning to apply in January, so we'll see how things go.

I've decided my favorite class will probably be Human Development, which studies the psychological growth of children. The lecture today was fascinating, and we discussed different types of parenting, how it's effective, what each type of parenting technique accomplishes, etc. We also discussed how a child's ability to learn and comprehend changes with age, and what they are capable of internalizing and learning with each stage. It was really intriguing, and I think I'm going to really like this class. I've always been interested in psychology, particularly developmental psychology, so this class is perfect.

I also had a physical science class today, that's catered towards teaching physical science in elementary school. I found it to be a little dull, but granted, I'm not a huge fan of physical science either. But I did think it was really neat to be studying it in the perspective of teaching it to elementary school kids. We did activities where we had to explain certain concepts to others as if they were a 3rd grade class, and then we had to pretend to be 3rd graders as others explained it to us so that we could try to get some perspective of what they would and wouldn't understand, and how it would be most effective to explain certain principles of physics in a manner they could understand.

I also have two religion classes, D&C and LDS Marriage and Family, a biology course similar to the physical science one where we learn it in the perspective of teaching it in elementary school, as well as a Music and Civilization course. I think I'll really like these classes. I'll definitely enjoy them a lot more than my old ones, that's for sure.

And I think that's about it for now. Tonight I have a meeting with the bishop and I'll get a new calling. That should be.... exciting? :) Till next time!

The End!!!

Classes are over! Yesterday was the last day, and now the rest of my time here in Provo is going to be a breeze. I don't have any REAL finals during finals week, I just have to attend the assigned time we've been schedule for finals, and each of my classes is doing some small thing just to meet the university requirement. Two of my real finals happened yesterday--a pre-production presentation for my CRV class and my final landscape design portfolio. So... neither were tests. I have no "tests" this year. Which is amazing, because I do MUCH better on presentations/papers/portfolios than I do on tests. I am just not a test taker. I guess it's a good thing I'm not a math/science major. Tests are going to be few and far between from here on out for me :)

Well, once again, not much has been happening other than schoolwork. However, I've had some pretty exciting/fun schoolwork lately, since we've been working on our finals. Overall, I haven't really enjoyed my CRV class, because I've felt that it was pointless. I mean-- the entire purpose of the class is to learn how to create a story... something that EVERYONE in that class already knows how to do. Otherwise they wouldn't be applying to the film major. I felt most of the class was busywork and filler space, and overall, a general waste of my time. However, the final wasn't related to ANYTHING we'd done all semester, and I actually enjoyed it. How often do you hear someone say the final was their favorite part of class? :P

For the final, we were split into groups of five and we had to do all the pre-production work for creating a film. Granted, we hadn't learned how to do ANY of this during the class, which was a little frustrating at times when they wanted us to make a budget for the film as well as a detailed schedule including casting, filming, editing, etc. It would have been fun to actually MAKE the film... but students aren't allowed to do that until their 419 project. Anyways, we were given basic film pitches (created by other students in the class--we each had to come up with a pitch and then vote on which ones we liked best. These were then assigned to other groups, and no one was allowed to work on their own pitch) and then we had to work with our group to develop the story, draw out a storyboard, and plan the film out.

I don't mean to brag but... I think my group had one of the better ones. :) And I don't think its necessarily due to any one of us in the group. We were given a really good pitch that was left open ended so we were able to expand it a lot from the original idea and add more depth to it. Everyone in my group was excellent--we all worked really well together, and we all had the same basic ideas of where we wanted to take the film, which made working with them a lot easier. Two of the guys in my group-- Martin and Steven-- were especially fun to work with, because the three of us were the most excited about this film and we were the most in tune with what the others were thinking. We sort of ended up being the leaders of the group, and Brooke and Houston, our two other members, kind of took the back seat. Which was fine. I wish they would have contributed more, and I wish they weren't as hesitant to throw out ideas. I think that was one thing my group was particularly strong in-- we weren't afraid to throw out ideas, even if they were stupid. And we were all good about shooting down the stupid ones in a nice way. :) We were all just very comfortable working with each other, which made this project a lot more fun than I thought it would be.

So we gave the final presentation on our film to the class yesterday in lecture, and it went pretty well. I think our film had the most depth in it, because each of us in my group was really concerned with actually having multiple themes and lessons in our film. The other films were fun and cute, but there wasn't much substance to them. Not that that makes them bad--but I think ours had a lot more thought and planning put into it than the others. Ours was the only film I could imagine actually being made into a feature length film. The others were all specifically student films, which have to be about 20 minutes or shorter.

Anyways, so that was done yesterday. I also turned in my landscape design portfolio yesterday, which took a LOT of work. I had been doing all my papers and preparations for my other classes and put off assembling my portfolio and finishing my design till Monday. Bad idea. I opened up the portfolio rubric around 6 PM on Monday night, and realized that I didn't just have to put everything I'd already turned in in there. I also had to draw up a cost estimate for all the plant and structural materials, as well as a horticulture list with the scientific and common names for each plant I would use, with a location they could be purchased at, what size they would be when purchased, how big they would grow, and the quantity I would need for the design. Needless to say, it was several hours of work just to finish the horticulture list and the cost estimate. I'm sure the materials could have been found for cheaper than what I put on there, but once it hit midnight and I was only a third done, I gave up trying to find the cheap ones and just went for the first thing I saw. :) Even so, apparently my design is a lot more expensive than I originally thought. I was expecting a couple thousand dollars... yeah, it turned out to be around $7500. Not including the expenses for construction and transportation. But at least the yard looks nice :)

I was actually quite happy with my final design. It all came together late at night. I was stuck on how to increase the aesthetics of the backyard, and then suddenly, it just hit me. And then I started drawing like crazy, and BAM! There was the new backyard. :) I'll end up giving my portfolio to Mack's mom when I get it back, because she said she'd like to see my ideas, and I don't have any use for it. Maybe she can use some of my suggestions. It'd be cool if she did--I could come back and actually see my design implemented.

My last day of Japanese was a bittersweet one. I really liked that class, and I think it's one of the few classes that I'll really miss taking. I wish there was another one, but sadly, that's the only Japanese Lit class to my knowledge. I'd like to actually take the Japanese language courses, but that's only if I have the room in my schedule to take them. Sigh.

The end of my film class was also bittersweet as well. I really enjoyed the lectures and labs for that class. It was basically just a class of what I do after I watch a movie anyways. Sit and watch films, and then analyze them. So much fun! :)

But even though I've decided against the film major and I'm going back to English (for real this time), it's not the end of film for me. Within the English major, there is a film and literature class that I fully intend on taking. It's all about the adaptation of novels into films. I think it'll be fascinating. But I won't be able to take it for a while, since it's a 400 level class and I need to get through all the 200 level ones first.

Well... I think that's about all that's going on right now. Done with classes, and now I just have my "finals." What a joke. It's basically just like going to another day of class for me, since we're required to do SOMETHING during finals week. :) In film, we're just watching a movie and then writing a quick paper on it. Landscape design we're coming in, holding up our designs, and going "This is my project...". For CRV, we're turning in a paper and then walking right back out. And for Japanese... well, Sensei still hasn't created the final. He doesn't know what he wants to do. But the options were 1. watch a kabuki and whoever leaves last gets an A 2. watch the 1980s version of Yotsuya Kaidan (one of the most famous ghost stories in Japan, which we studied) or 3. Write some in class paper. I'm voting for number 2. Number 1 would be amusing. :P Sensei joked that we'd all just bring sleeping bags and camp out to get an A. This option came about because he asked us what we've learned to DO in this class, and someone jokingly said "Watch really, really, really, REALLY boring kabuki." Then came about the option of Sensei picking the most boring kabuki he could think of, and whoever could last the longest would get an A and the grades would just be scaled down based on the order of people who left. Of course, we're not REALLY going to do that... but it was amusing, nonetheless. :)

Apparently there's a Japanese calligraphy class... I am REALLY tempted to take it. I think my Sensei teaches a section of it, because there's a student in my class who kept having him look over his calligraphy, and one day Sensei mentioned something about seeing him improve after looking at his work all semester. So if there IS a calligraphy class that doesn't require you to be in the major or to have taken Japanese, I would love to take it. Especially if Stoneman Sensei is teaching it, because he's an amazing professor.

And now I'm just slowly packing up all my belongings, getting ready to move out and go to Florida!!! I'm really excited to get out there. I'll miss living with my roommates, especially Somers, since she won't be back till January. I'll miss having her around. But I know I'll get to see her again, so it's not completely awful. :) But I'm very excited to get out to Florida, tan, and go around the Disney parks. I know I'll probably get tired of my actual job fairly quickly, but at least I'm in a fun environment and on my days off I can just mess around in the parks. Another good thing is that I'll be working/living with a lot of BYU students, since we have a different internship schedule than other schools with Disney, and so if I make some really good friends out there, I'll still be able to see them when I come back in the fall most likely. This semester may be one ending, but Florida is just another window of opportunity, and any connections I make there could last long past the time my internship is over and I'm back in Provo. :)

Well, I think that's all for now. I'll probably update again once I'm in Florida! :)

Finishing Up

Well, I realize that it's been almost a full semester since I last updated, so I figured I was due. :P

Really, I feel like there's not much to report. I've just been busy with schoolwork this semester, and that takes up most of my time now. I'm so excited that I can now count the number of weeks till the end of the semester on one hand. I love my classes this semester, but I'm ready to be DONE.

And as the end of the semester gets closer, I get more and more excited for DisneyWorld this summer! The weather here has been tricking me into thinking it's closer to the summer than it actually is. Winter was pathetic this year, with barely any snow or rain. It was a really warm winter. And I love the winter, but I'm at the point now where I just want it to stay sunny because the bipolar overcast skies one day, sunny skies the next is getting tiring. Because it's been so bipolar, I've just had a box of winter clothes sitting at the side of my desk because packing away my warm weather clothes is pointless since I'll probably require short sleeves the next day. My closet is far too small to hold both winter and summer clothes. :P

Two days ago I woke up and automatically felt that "summer" feeling. You know how the air just feels different? It's not necessarily summer temperatures here quite yet (although it IS supposed to get up to 60 today, which is really hot compared to the 20/30 on the days it decides to be cold), but it just has that summer feeling. It's making me even more restless for classes to be done so that I can go to Florida.

Two weekends ago we celebrated both Sarah's and Somers' birthdays. Sarah turned 21, so we went to Spark, a nonalcoholic restaurant lounge and bar to celebrate her 21st the Mormon way. :P They were fairly good drinks, but a little pricey. But hey, what else did I expect? I knew I'd be paying at LEAST 3 bucks for a drink. Turns out it was 4 :P But it was a fun night regardless. Somers turned 20 on Monday, and so we bought some Pralines and Cream ice cream from the Creamery to celebrate.We stuck it full of our candles that have been used for every birthday so far in our apartment. They're the traditional re-used, re-licked, burnt down to half their original size candles. :)

Rayne has come to visit several times now. She was here for Sarah's birthday, and she came two weeks before that, and the week before THAT. Hopefully she'll be able to come down again, because we all love having her here. She fits right in with my apartment. :)

This past weekend was a bit of fun and a bit of not-so-fun. On Friday we had a Bollywood night and Julie stayed with us because Alan went to Vegas for some Army training. We had Indian food and watched my all time favorite Bollywood romance, Veer-Zaara. Then we pulled three mattresses out into the living room and had a big sleepover.

Saturday I began to get a little sick, but it wasn't too bad, so I didn't mind that much. That night we had a Mexican fiesta in honor of Julie, because she's the one who loved them so much last year. Then James came over and we swapped a bunch of movies because he got an external hard drive. We all played Harry Potter Uno, which was a lot of fun. I've never played Uno before, and it took me a while to catch on (and even by the end, I still didn't understand some of their rules :P), but I managed to win three rounds, much to the surprise of everyone, including myself. :P

Sunday morning I woke up to find that I was way more sick than I thought I would be. I spent most of the day in bed and slept most of the time. That part wasn't so much fun, but I'm sure I needed the catch up on sleep. I've been so tired lately, so that definitely helped.

And now I'm getting better. I've just got a little sniffle and cough left, but other than that, I'm doing just great. I'm just doing my schoolwork, trying to finish up everything and study for the few tests I have. I'll be taking only my second test of the semester. And it's already the end. I pick my classes well. :P I've got another test next week, which will make my third, but after that, I only have finals for tests. And most of my finals aren't really tests either :P

Well, I should get in some last minute studying before I go take my landscape design test. It's pretty fun designing McKenzie's front and back yards, but I'm finding it difficult to stick within the budget. If I had an unlimited amount of money to be working with (hypothetically of course. We don't actually do anything to their yards, but we have to work within the budget we're given by the homeowner and follow what they've said they want), there is so much that I could do. I've kind of started to move a little outside the specific things that her mom told me she wanted, which my professor encouraged anyway, because a lot of times landowners give specifics on what they want but don't really list everything that will connect it all together. So now I've gotten all of the required parts planned in, and I'm starting to do a little extra for aesthetics, which is my favorite part. It'd be cool if I could actually make one of these designs and then see the product off of paper. But alas, that's really expensive. :P

I'll update again when I have more to say. That may end up being once I'm in Florida, at the rate I've been posting. :P Till next time!

Another New Semester

So I realized that I haven't posted in quite some time, so I thought I'd do a little update. :)

This semester is proving to be exhausting. It's only the end of the third week and already I want it to be over. Not that I don't like my classes--I love all of them except family finance, and that one I have to hate just on principle because it involves math. :P The rest of my classes are great, they're just... very time consuming. So I find myself burnt out on Tuesday and wanting the weekend to be there already. But oh well. I just have to plug through it. :)

My job was also cancelled for this semester, which was a disappointment. I had been looking forward to the paychecks, but apparently not enough professors in Hong Kong wanted to participate in the program, so they cancelled it last minute on us. And by that point, any on campus jobs I might have been able to do had been filled. Soooo... I'm kind of stuck jobless due to my lack of transportation.

However, I am making a little cash (and when I say little, I mean LITTLE) doing makeup. I've just been doing makeup for Mack's little sister whenever she has high school dances, and I get paid for it. I keep thinking I should make a facebook group or something to advertise, I just haven't yet. :P

Let's see, what else has been going on? Hm...

Well... the first week of school, I had an entirely different schedule than I have now. I think I only kept like, two of the original seven classes I signed up for. :P Now I have Family Finance, Japanese Literature (which is my favorite class right now), CRV (collaboration, research, and visualization. its a prerequisite for the Media Arts major), Intro to Film (which is my second favorite class), and Residential Landscape Design. They're all very interesting, but three of them are AT LEAST two hours long. One is two and a half. And all of those fall on Tuesday. So... I have class from 9 AM till 6:30 PM, and it gets quite tiring. So only two of my classes this semester are regular 50 minute classes.

Let's see... this past week, I did a lot of schoolwork... and... uh.... Wow. My social life seems to have stopped this semester. :P Well, we did watch Monty Python and the Holy Grail last night. And... what did I do earlier in the week? Hm... I believe we watched another movie earlier this week... oh, Scott and I went out for ice cream one night... and... Yeah. I think that's about it. :P

Oh, two weeks ago I had an ultrasound. That was fun. It was cool seeing my insides. :) But apparently I hadn't drunk enough water before I came in, so they made me down two huge cups of nasty lukewarm water that made me want to throw up, and then they stuck me out in the hall for a half hour to get it through my system. In that time, I ended up playing with a little two year old boy and his four year old sister while they were waiting for their seven year old sister to finish with her x-rays. The mom looked a little worn, cause she had a newborn with her too, so one of the receptionists in radiology gave the kids crayons and printed out some coloring book pages, and then I colored with the kids and tried to keep them entertained. They were pretty cute, and it distracted me a bit from the fact that I felt like I was going to pee my pants. :P Then I went back in, had the gel goo stuff squirted on me for a third time, and saw my insides. :) And then I was told that my cysts were completely gone. So. That's good. :)

Other than that... not much else has been going on. Last weekend we had a Strange Brew party at our apartment, and that was a lot of fun. James was down for the weekend, so we decided we wanted to have the party while he was here. So we watched Strange Brew and drank IBC rootbeer (in the bottles. We had to look legit. :P), and we invited some people from the ward. So that was a lot of fun. Afterwards, some of us played Catch Phrase until curfew. So... a rather enjoyable night :) James and I watched Dune that Friday night while mostly everyone was at a volleyball game, cause neither of us are really sports people, and we know that none of them are truly nerdy enough to appreciate Dune. :P Sunday we watched O Brother Where Art Thou? over at Coventry, which is a fantastic movie. :) And... Monday was a day off (Martin Luther King Jr. Day), so that morning James, Mal, and I watched some cartoons before he took off to head back up to Logan (he's an FHE daddy, so he had to be back in time for that :P). And then I believe I spent the rest of the day doing homework and such. :P

Hm... Well, I don't think there's much else to say. It snowed a little bit this weekend, so that was really pretty. And... yeah. I just have a lot of homework to do. So... I should probably get to that, since I think we might be watching Back to the Future at some point tonight. :)

VEGAS!

Hello!

Well, I've had quite the adventuresome weekend. :) But I figure I should start with where I left off in my last post. :P

So last Saturday, I didn't do too much. Nathan and I went out to lunch and then studied in the library for a while, and then I think that night we just watched a movie or something. I can't really remember. It was far too long ago and my brain is nowhere near its normal functioning level. :P

And then this past week I spent finishing up all of my work, making up tests, and getting pretty much everything in order for the end of classes. Thursday was the last day of classes, and then Friday was a Reading Day, aka Vacation Day. :P

James came down from Logan and is back for the winter break, so Friday night I went over to Coventry to see him and we watched two episodes of Band of Brothers and talked for a bit. Then Saturday morning I woke up and Somers brought me breakfast in bed for my birthday, and then I did a take home final, then quickly packed. Mack and I got her car from Payson, and then we set off on a five hour drive to Las Vegas! :D

We forgot about the time change, and so we ended up with an extra hour on the strip that we hadn't been planning on. So we just walked around a bit, grabbed some dinner, and freshened up for the concert. Then we headed over to the Hard Rock Hotel, found a girl who had agreed to buy our extra tickets for more than we'd paid (so we made at least a little profit off of them :P), and then we headed inside The Joint for the concert. The first two opening acts were pretty decent--I'd never heard of them before. The first one to play was Afghan Raiders, and they were sort of an electrorock group. Then it was Paper Tongues, and they had SEVEN people in their band. Quite a lot. They were pretty good too--the lead singer definitely had a set of lungs. Man. I was pretty impressed by how well he could sing. I'd been expecting some really crappy openers. :P Paper Tongues was more of a modern rock band. And then it was Cage the Elephant, which was the bigger band of the three openers, and they were... well, not to my taste, shall we say. :P The lead singer was one of those types that's more concerned with dancing around and looking like he's having a half hour long seizure rather than singing well. There were only two songs that I thought he actually performed well on, because he calmed down a bit and stopped jittering and running all around the stage. :P It was kind of one of those bands where I felt like I'd really like them if it weren't for the lead singer. :P

And then came Muse. And I nearly died. It was so amazing! I pretty much fell in love with them all over again. :P They played four of their new songs, beginning their set with Uprising, which was utterly amazing. And even though they didn't have their full show or anything, it was still spectacular for what they DID have. They're just such amazing live performers!

Afterwards we just went back to the car, got ourselves ready to go, and then drove straight back to Provo. We both stayed awake (thanks to the help of a lot of Mountain Dew :P) and just belted along to the cds we had. We wanted to make it through the night because there was a weather alert saying that a storm was going to hit today, and we didn't want to be snowed in away from Provo. Seeing as it's finals week this week, and being stuck out of Provo would NOT be a good thing. So we drove straight through the night (and didn't hit much bad weather. It just rained a bit, and there was a little snow, but nothing major). We got into Provo at around 8:30 this morning with no sleep (aside from a 1 hour power nap I had from 6:30-7:30, but that doesn't really count. It didn't do a thing, cause it was one of those "close your eyes and wake up and its light outside" types of power naps :P). Then Mack and I were so wired up from the soda that we couldn't fall asleep, so we put in It's A Wonderful Life and tried to fall asleep to that. She eventually conked out, but I didn't fall asleep until 1 in the afternoon. And then I woke up at 3. So now I'm functioning on 3 hours of unrestful sleep. And I'm in that state where I'm past the point of sleep and my MIND is alert and not tired at all, but my body is tired. But there's no way I'm going to be able to fall asleep right now. But at least I know I'll sleep well tonight! :P

Tonight I'll probably go watch a movie with Scott and James, and I may practice for my makeup final on Matt. Tomorrow I'm using as a study day, and I plan on taking my Bio final and my New Testament final on Tuesday. Then Wednesday night is my makeup final, and Thursday morning is my Creative Writing final (which I hesitate to call a final, because we're just revising something we've already written and reading it aloud to the class :P). Then Thursday I fly to Disneyland! Whoo!

I don't anticipate my finals being too difficult. The only one I think I might struggle with a little is my Bio final, but I have a pretty good grade in that class, so even if I do poorly, it won't make a HUGE difference. Anyways, that pretty much catches me up to the present. :)

I'm just still so excited I got to see Muse last night. Oh! And yesterday morning, I bought tickets to see their actual TOUR in Salt Lake in April! I'm so excited! So I get to see them TWICE in the same school year :D They added a tour date for the Resistance Tour for April 5th at the E-Center in West Valley City, and the Silversun Pickups are opening for them. I actually know the Silversun Pickups, so I'll know BOTH bands. :D And then Muse will play a full set rather than the short one they had last night for the holiday concert, and they'll play more from The Resistance. Last night they played Uprising, United States of Eurasia, MK Ultra, and Unnatural Selection from The Resistance. The rest were old songs. They played Starlight, Supermassive Black Hole, Time Is Running Out, Knights of Cydonia, Stockholm Syndrome, Plug in Baby, and... one other. I can't remember what the last one was. Oh well. I'm excited I get to see them again. :D

I'll post more later when I have more to say. :P

The Last Weeks

Hey!
So the last couple weeks have been full of a lot of random happenings. I'm down to one more week of class and then a week of finals and I'm done with this semester! It's crazy how fast this semester has gone by, and how little I've gone to class. :P

This past week I've been studying like crazy. Starting Monday, I began working pretty much nonstop on all of my make up work/homework/studying that I need to do before the end of classes. I spent 21 hours on Monday and Tuesday doing work straight. Tuesday I spent 12 hours in the library, which was killer. And every night I've reserved a study room somewhere in the library so that a few of us can just spread our stuff out and have a place to work without having to worry about the people around us. So that's been pretty nice. But I've gotten quite a lot done, and now I'm down to my last few assignments, but it'll still take quite a lot of effort.

Today was the first break I gave myself since I started up school after Thanksgiving break. I had planned to do some more work today, but now that the end is in sight, I'm not as worried about finishing it all immediately, and today I had a lot of makeup to do. :) Sarah had a concert choir recital tonight, and so Mack and Krista curled her hair while I did her makeup. And then a little later I did Julie's makeup for the military ball, and then Mal's right after because she was going to the military ball on a blind date (one of Alan's friends from ROTC needed a date, so she went). And then I had to get MYSELF ready, because Matt and I were going out for dinner. So in between doing makeup for everybody, Krista, Somers, and I played Go Fish while watching the Phantom of the Opera, which was nice and relaxing and just what I needed after this week of straight work. And then Matt and I went to a Thai place that was DELICIOUS, and then we came back and watched A Very Potter Musical, which is hilarious. :)

And that pretty much catches me up to now. Tomorrow night there's a basketball game in Salt Lake, but I'm not going cause I didn't want to pay for tickets to a game I don't care about. But I have no idea what our plans are for tomorrow, so we'll see. :P

Well, this was a bit shorter than usual, but there really isn't much to tell. My life has just been a lot of hw/studying this week, so there's not really much to say. :P But next week I'll finish up all of my work, and then it'll be finals the next week, and then I'm off to Disneyland! :D

Oh, and next weekend on my birthday, Mack and I are going to Las Vegas to see Muse!!! I'm really excited for that. Man. I just need to get to next weekend and my life will be so much easier. Even though I'll have finals, I won't have as much work to do.

Well, it's getting late and we have a cleaning check in the morning, and I've also run out of things to say. So I shall end this here and will post more later when I've got more to tell. :)

Pictures

Here's some pictures from Halloween and makeup...
This was my practice makeup on Friday for Halloween. Mack had finished altering the dress, and I just did my face. Mal was a creepy marionette doll for Halloween.
The dead girl and the doll. :P
Mack told me that I looked like a punk bride with the ripped sleeves, so she told me to strike a rocker pose. It was only until later when we looked at the picture that we realized I was making the "I love you" sign in sign language. So... this picture says "I LOVE YOU!!!" :P Mack has officially decided she wants a wedding picture like this. :P
This was the dress BEFORE it was altered. 10 foot train. And the poofy sleeves are still attached. And the back is pretty low. :P
Matt didn't have a costume, and Somers' came with the Raggedy Andy one as well as Raggedy Ann, so we just made him put on the costume real quick and I drew a red triangle on his nose. Tada! Instant costume. :) I'm not quite sure why they were strangling each other though :P
This is actually on Friday. Mack had a date on Halloween and Mal had to work, so neither were going to get to celebrate Halloween. So they dressed up Friday for classes, and then Somers and I joined them later that night. :P Mack is Wednesday from the Adams Family, then Somers as Raggedy Ann, me as Emily from the Corpse Bride, and Mal as a creepy marionette.
This is Tom, Nathan's roommate. I had just applied the first layer of the beard. :)
And this is the finished product: a Sean Connery beard and grayed hair. :) I was going to age his face as well, but when we looked at the prices for the makeup I was going to need, we decided not to. He's a poor college student, after all. :P
This was just for fun one day. When Mack saw my middle aged makeup, she wanted me to do hers as well. So one random weekend I turned her into an old lady. I think it turned out pretty well. :)

And that's all for now!